Remarkable Creatures

From the moment she's struck by lightening as a baby, it is clear that Mary Anning is marked for greatness. On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, she learns that she has "the eye"-and finds what no one else can see. When Mary uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious fathers on edge, the townspeople to vicious gossip, and the scientific world alight.

The Last Runaway

In best-selling author Tracy Chevalier’s newest historical saga, she introduces Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker who moves to Ohio in 1850, only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape. Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality.

Alex & Me

On September 6, 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age 31. His last words to his owner, Irene Pepperberg, were "You be good. I love you." What would normally be a quiet, very private event was, in Alex's case, headline news. Over the 30 years they had worked together, Alex and Irene had become famous - two pioneers who opened an unprecedented window into the hidden yet vast world of animal minds.

The Forgotten Seamstress

A shy girl with no family, Maria knows she's lucky to have landed in the sewing room of the royal household. Before World War I casts its shadow, she catches the eye of the Prince of Wales, a glamorous and intense gentleman. But her life takes a far darker turn, and soon all she has left is a fantastical story about her time at Buckingham Palace. Decades later, Caroline Meadows discovers a beautiful quilt in her mother's attic.

Pope Joan

For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die - Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Donna Woolfolk Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.

Henry and Cato

When old friends Henry and Cato reunite after years apart, they quickly become embroiled in the drama of each other’s lives. Henry, who has just returned to England as the sole heir to his recently deceased brother’s estate, quickly begins to uncover secrets buried long ago. Meanwhile, Cato, a Catholic priest, has fallen in love with the criminal Beautiful Joe, and struggles to reform him despite the thief’s continual efforts to rob him.

At the Edge of the Orchard

It's 1838. James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck - in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the 50 apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle.

Secrets of Nanreath Hall: A Novel

Cornwall, 1940. Back in England after the harrowing evacuation at Dunkirk, WWII Red Cross nurse Anna Trenowyth is shocked to learn her adoptive parents, Graham and Prue Handley, have been killed in an air raid. She desperately needs their advice, as she's been assigned to the military hospital that has set up camp inside her biological mother's childhood home - Nanreath Hall. Anna was just six years old when her mother, Lady Katherine Trenowyth, died. All she has left are vague memories that tease her with clues she can't unravel.

Whirligig

Newbery Medal winner Paul Fleischman writes a profoundly moving story of connectedness and the journey of a young soul to self-discovery. Told through the voices of five characters and narrated by age-appropriate actors, Whirligig compels the listener with its lesson on how our actions can impact the lives of others - even years later. A stunningly authentic listening experience.

On Wings of Eagles

When two of his American employees were held hostage in a heavily guarded prison fortress in Iran, one man took matters into his own hands: American businessman H. Ross Perot. His team consisted of a group of volunteers from the executive ranks of his corporation, hand-picked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer. To free the imprisoned Americans, they would face incalculable odds on a mission that only true heroes would have dared.

Beneath a Scarlet Sky: A Novel

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He's a normal Italian teenager - obsessed with music, food, and girls - but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior. In an attempt to protect him, Pino's parents force him to enlist as a German soldier - a move they think will keep him out of combat.

Bones Never Lie

Unexpectedly called in to the Charlotte PD's Cold Case Unit, Dr. Temperance Brennan wonders why she's been asked to meet with a homicide cop who's a long way from his own jurisdiction. The shocking answer: Two child murders, separated by thousands of miles, have one thing in common - the killer.

Sarum: The Novel of England

In Sarum, Edward Rutherfurd weaves a compelling saga of five English families whose fates become intertwined over the course of centuries. While each family has its own distinct characteristics, the successive generations reflect the changing character of Britain. We become drawn not only into the fortunes of the individual family members, but also the larger destinies of each family line.

Falling Angels

An elegant, original, and compelling novel, set against a gaslit backdrop of social and political turbulence in early 20th-century London, Falling Angels draws a picture of family life that exposes the prejudices and flaws of a changing time. Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring) "shows imaginative skill in two neatly accomplished surprises, and the denouement packs an emotional wallop," says Publishers Weekly.

The Shoemaker's Wife: A Novel

The fateful first meeting of Enza and Ciro takes place amid the haunting majesty of the Italian Alps at the turn of the last century. Still teenagers, they are separated when Ciro is banished from his village and sent to hide in New York's Little Italy, apprenticed to a shoemaker, leaving a bereft Enza behind. But when her own family faces disaster, she, too, is forced to emigrate to America. Though destiny will reunite the star-crossed lovers, it will, just as abruptly, separate them once again....

The Meaning of Night

A cold October night, 1854. In a dark passageway, an innocent man is stabbed to death. So begins the extraordinary story of Edward Glyver, book lover, scholar and murderer. As a young boy, Glyver always believed he was destined for greatness. This seems the stuff of dreams, until a chance discovery convinces Glyver that he was right: greatness does await him, along with immense wealth and influence. And he will stop at nothing to win back a prize that he now knows is rightfully his.

The Virgin Blue

Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin, two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family, but a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family's French ancestry.

Lady Macbeth: A Novel

Lady Macbeth takes listeners into the heart of 11th-century Scotland, painting a vivid picture of Gruadh, the last female descendent of the country's most royal line. Married, pregnant, then quickly widowed, she is forced to wed her husband's murderer, the warlord Macbeth. Determined to protect her interests and those of her infant son, she vows to preserve her family's legacy at any cost.

Illumination Night

Illumination Night follows the lives of a young blond giant who is as beautiful as he is frightening; an old woman at the end of her life whose last mission is to save her granddaughter's soul; a family torn apart by a wife's fears and a husband's unrealized desires; and the high school girl who comes to Martha's Vineyard against her will, who steals husbands and cars, and who will bring everyone together in a web of yearning, sin, and ultimate redemption.

Days of Night

When retired police detective Joe Heller is called in to investigate what might be Antarctica's first murder, he quickly discovers that winter at McMurdo Station comes with a unique set of challenges: darkness, isolation, and the eccentric behavior of the research facility's 157 inhabitants. But a difficult investigation turns much tougher when all communication with the outside world is suddenly cut off.

Burning Bright

A poor family moves to 18th-century London, where the father has been offered a job as a carpenter for a circus. His children befriend a young girl who introduces them to the great city. Their neighbor is none other than the real-life poet, William Blake.

Marlene: A Novel

Raised in genteel poverty after the First World War, Maria Magdalena Dietrich dreams of a life on the stage. When a budding career as a violinist is cut short, the willful teenager vows to become a singer, trading her family's proper middle-class society for the free-spirited, louche world of Weimar Berlin's cabarets and drag balls.

Publisher's Summary

After earning a graduate degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, Tracy Chevalier was immediately recognized for her literary talent. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, she recreates the 17th-century world of Johannes Vermeer. This haunting work of historical fiction received rave reviews in publications as diverse as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor.

In 1664, 16-year-old Griet enters the Vermeer household as a servant. Daughter of a Delft tile maker, she has a natural eye for color and design. Daily, she cleans the studio, learning much about how Vermeer sees the people he paints. As his attention focuses on her, she slowly becomes one of his subjects. Tracy Chevalier fills this unusual love story with the shades, sounds, and textures of everyday life in Holland. Narrator Ruth Ann Phimister perfectly voices Griet's growing awareness of the intrigues surrounding her and the need to define the value of her life.

What the Critics Say

"Outstanding." (USA Today) "This is a completely absorbing story with enough historical authenticity and artistic intuition to mark Chevalier as a talented newcomer to the literary scene." (Publishers Weekly) "Chevalier's exploration into the soul of this complex but nave young woman is moving, and her depiction of 17th-century Delft is marvelously evocative." (The New York Times)

This one is hard to put my finger on why I enjoyed it so much. It drew me in much like the painting. The author's choice of symbolism was quiet and intriguing. The book to me was a coming of age story I liked what one editor said, "when Griet was forced by Vermeer to pierce her ears, there is a symbolic deflowering of the young girl. She is forced to sacrifice her position in the household for art. And Griet is well aware of her sacrifice, ``he used what he wanted for his paintings, without considering the result''. And, ``I should have begged him not to ruin me".
Griet connected with Vermeer at the place where his heart was and her heart was too. Vermeer's wife couldn't get there and neither could the butcher boy Peter. There was more sensual excitement in the painting of the earring than the backstreet encounter with the boyfriend.
I will be thinking of this book for a while and enjoying the "small strokes of light" that will come as I decipher the different angles to look at it

This was an excellent read (and listen); the movie was also great. It is a short book, full of color and passion (like a good painting). Even though the broad strokes are based on fact ( the painter's family and the world in which he painted and did business are probably accurate), this is a novel...but while reading it, it is easy to believe that things happened as recounted by the author

Which scene was your favorite?

This was a very "visual" book; everything is described in vibrant detail; I have more than one favorite scene.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

If you could sum up Girl with a Pearl Earring in three words, what would they be?

Quiet Captivating Story

What other book might you compare Girl with a Pearl Earring to and why?

The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield. The feminine pov and great descriptive writing of fine details that are not boring. Writing of simple, everyday activities come to life and draw you in.

Have you listened to any of Ruth Ann Phimister’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but I look forward to listening to her again if it's a book that interests me. She was perfect for this character Griet, 17th century Holland and the story.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I found it to be a relaxing audio book, yet never boring. I listened to it over the course of one day.

Any additional comments?

The book is a bit different from the film and is a wonderful adaptation. If you enjoyed the film, I'm sure you won't regret investing your time or money on the paperback or this audiobook.

I liked this book much more than I was expecting. The story was very well developed and all the pieces were brought together in the end. The readers voice was wonderful as the voice of the young woman and I really felt like I got in her head through her thoughts.

I had enjoyed "Fallen Angels" so very much and "Virgin Blue" slightly less (but it was still good). I have put off seeing the film of "Girl with a Pearl Earring" until I could finish the book, but now I may never bother. What a bore this book is! About 3/4 of the way through it I recognized it as a poor retelling of "Jane Eyre", but it never deserves to be fully compared to that masterpiece. This 1st person narrative is gentle and plodding, a poor girl brought down in circumstances who must take an honest job. She thinks WAY too highly of herself and her allure; she develops "relationships" in her head which are likely passing thoughts in the minds of the men involved. The narrator does an adequate job but also seems bored. I'm so glad I read the other books first!